Relay Foods, a startup that wants to do for groceries what Amazon.com did for books, has raised $8.25 million in a new round of venture funding from undisclosed investors, Chief Executive Zach Buckner told VentureWire.

Courtesy of Relay Foods

The company currently operates its online grocery ordering and delivery business in multiple cities in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland. It plans to use the bulk of its new capital to expand geographically, market its service and create new mobile apps.

On RelayFoods.com today, shoppers can choose from 30,000 products offered by merchants, ranging from local artisanal bakeries and butchers to grocers like Whole Foods and Super Valu that have partnered with the startup.

Orders are assembled by Relay Foods and made available to customers at pick-up locations. Corporate campuses allow Relay Foods to set up these pickup locations in their lots because they deem the grocery service a kind of employee perk, Buckner says. Relay Foods also arranges pick-ups at family-frequented locations like private schools, parks or churches, he said.

“Parents love the convenience,” he said. “Instead of having to drive all around town to get what they want, they just come to us, and get it all in one package.”

E-commerce grocery startups that also drew investments in the past year include Dine In Fresh, better known as Plated, which raised $1.3 million from ff Venture Capital, and Blue Apron, which raised $3 million from First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. They both deliver pre-measured ingredients, ready-to-cook, direct to customers’ homes.

More direct competitors to Relay Foods that attained equity financing include Farmigo, which raised $10 million total venture funding from Sherbrooke Capital, RSF Social Finance and Benchmark Capital, among others; Good Eggs, backed by Collaborative Fund; and Greenling, backed by Capital Factory.

What’s driving so much investor interest, observes Battery Ventures General Partner Brian O’Malley, an early backer of Relay Foods, is “the sheer size of the market opportunity.” The investor believes, however, that “the grocery business is logistically and operationally complicated. We’ll see rollup possibilities for Relay Foods…because a lot of the [other] startups are not going to survive.”

Last year, Relay Foods acquired Arganica Farm Club, a digital grocery business that helped its early geographic expansion. It is not currently eyeing new acquisition targets, but may do so given its new funding, said O’Malley, who declined to name investors in the new financing round.

Startups aren’t the only companies getting in the “e-grocery” business–juggernauts of tech and logistics like Google and Amazon are testing out competing services (Google Shopping Express and Amazon Fresh). And in 2011, retail behemoth Walmart launched “Walmart To Go” in two test markets, San Francisco and San Jose.

Still, consumers in the U.S. have been slow to shift their habits from brick-and-mortar shopping for groceries to online and mobile. According to research from the Hartman Group, only 18% of consumers domestically went online to order groceries in the last three months.

The project lead on this study, Davey McHenry, believes traditional groceries with an e-commerce site, like Safeway.com or Walmart.com, may have an advantage online, as people already trust them as providers of food and beverages. But, she says, “Groceries that do not count digital as a core competency should consider partnerships with e-commerce specialists.”

The Hartman Group analysis indicates it could be a very long time before shoppers order as much online, or as frequently, as they buy from stores. Some 36% of shoppers they surveyed claim they will “never” order groceries online, though 37% of respondents said they planned to at least try ordering groceries online within the next year.

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